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Comment Unserious and Dumb (Score 1) 710

I didn't see any serious allegations, just some picayune nonsense and hurt feelings. She's upset by "aggressive communication" on pull requests. The founder sends his wife around to have a chick-to-chick talk to see if there's anything to be done about keeping her happy. She blows up at that and complains to the net.

Comment Re:This is why (Score 1) 1130

The NG is _a_ militia.

The NG is actually two entities in one. Members are simultaneously part of the Reserve components of the US armed forces and a member of the state militia. As such they answer both to the president as members of the armed forces and to the governor as part of the militia. The feds can at any time say "they're federal forces" and take them away from the governor. This is what allows the NG to be shipped overseas. The federal government does not have an enumerated power to use the militia outside the US--only to repel invasion and suppress insurrection. So when the feds want to use them to invade Canada, they say they're part of the US armed forces and place them under US federal command.

There are other militias. For example, many states such as Texas have a State Guard. This is a militia, but they are _not_ enrolled in the US Reserves. States can define other militias.

Comment Re:That's nice (Score 1) 847

The vehicle was unmarked. The combatants being shot at were violating the laws of war by engaging in combat operations while out of uniform. You're on crack if you think they weren't acting like combatants. AKs and RPGs are clearly visibile in the video, and you're lying if you deny it.

There's no obligation to refrain from killing the wounded so long as they are not hors de combat. Attempting to escape is evidence that they are not. They must indicate intention to surrender.

Comment Re:That's nice (Score 1) 847

That's what the Laws of War say, too. So I guess in this case the Nazis were in good company.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says (rule 47) says someone is hors de combat and protected if:

"(a) anyone who is in the power of an adverse party;
(b) anyone who is defenceless because of unconsciousness, shipwreck, wounds or sickness; or
(c) anyone who clearly expresses an intention to surrender;
provided he or she abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape. ...
According to Additional Protocol I, immunity from attack is conditional on refraining from any hostile act or attempt to escape.[39] This is also set forth in several military manuals. The commission of these acts signifies that the person in question is in fact no longer hors de combat and does not qualify for protection under this rule."

The insurgents in the video--who were themselves in the midst of committing a war crime by engaging in combat while out of uniform--did not meet this requirement. It's perfectly acceptable to continue to engage them.

Comment Re:YRO? (Score 1) 738

In fact, under the US system of dual sovereignty California is sovereign in certain aspects, while the federal government is sovereign over other aspects. The states are not just branch offices of the federal government.

There's no guarantee that the feds will do anything at all if a state defaults or goes bankrupt. Maybe they will; it would be a colossal mess to have a few hundred billion in California bonds default. But maybe they won't. And even if they do, depending on the political climate, it would likely result in some group getting the shaft, be it bond holders, state employees, or pension holders.

Comment Re:Wrong weapon (Score 1) 392

You seem to be missing how much more in social benefits Europeans get compared to Americans.

...And government finances that are at the point of collapse in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, the UK, and Italy, and a German electorate about to cut them all off.

It all only works until you run out of other people's money, and Europe has run out of Germans.

Comment Re:Perception is reality (Score 1) 304

There are a lot of rumors floating around about Apple doing something with AMD. There's some small probability (probably less than 50%) that they'll ship some new AMD-ish server thing after the new year, at about the time they phase out the xServes.

Comment Re:The Washington Post.... (Score 1) 837

"After WikiLeaks published a trove of U.S. intelligence documents—some of which listed the names and villages of Afghans who had been secretly cooperating with the American military—it didn’t take long for the Taliban to react. A spokesman for the group quickly threatened to “punish” any Afghan listed as having “collaborated” with the U.S. and the Kabul authorities against the growing Taliban insurgency. In recent days, the Taliban has demonstrated how seriously those threats should be considered. Late last week, just four days after the documents were published, death threats began arriving at the homes of key tribal elders in southern Afghanistan. And over the weekend one tribal elder, Khalifa Abdullah, who the Taliban believed had been in close contact with the Americans, was taken from his home in Monar village, in Kandahar province’s embattled Arghandab district, and executed by insurgent gunmen."

That asshat Assange has gotten people killed, and helped medieval religious fanatics continue their stranglehold on millions of people. And idiots on Slashdot cheer, because it's the roxor to safely posture about how evil the US is from the safety of a keyboard in an air conditioned office.

Comment Re:And I thought the al quaeda BS would finally st (Score 1) 245

Or it could be that, you know, al Qaeda really exists, and that they are really trying to conduct terror attacks, and that the two arrested really were participating in planning for those attacks. The French had comprehensively bugged their communications and knew what they were up to. From the Daily Mail:

"Adlene Hicheur is a former research fellow at the Rutherford Appleton and still visits the UK for conferences and other meetings. He and Halim are accused of compiling information about possible targets and sending it to contacts in North Africa involved with Al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). ...
European intelligence sources said that Adlene Hicheur, who studied at Stanford University in California before moving to Oxfordshire, had expressed a ‘very strong wish to carry out attacks anywhere where Western security interests can be damaged’."

Security

Submission + - Liquid Explosives Feasible 1

Ernst Blofeld writes: "As a follow-up to this now-archived story from 2006:

Slashdot Article

Which questioned whether liquid explosives were feasible as a terrorist weapon to blow up airliners, it should be noted that the terrorists involved have been convicted of attempting to bomb aircraft using liquid explosives:

BBC Story

Three men have been found guilty of plotting to kill thousands of people by blowing up planes flying from London to America with home-made liquid bombs. A Woolwich Crown Court jury convicted Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, Tanvir Hussain, 28, and Assad Sarwar, 29, of conspiring to activate bombs disguised as drinks.

So now everyone can go back to the original story and check up on who was full of it and who wasn't."

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